Rumors: Knicks, Rockets in pursuit of Rajon Rondo

It’s been a while since we’ve come across a Rajon Rondo trade rumor. Here’s a report involving the Knicks and blatant speculation about the Rockets:

Iman Shumpert had a second left knee operation over the summer, the Daily News has learned and it is unclear if the unreported surgery could impact his trade value with the desperate Knicks trying to package Shumpert in a number of proposed deals including one for Boston’s Rajon Rondo.

…

Of course, the Knicks primary target is Rondo, Boston’s All Star point guard who is currently recovering from knee surgery. The Knicks have been trying to trade Shumpert, Raymond Felton and Amar’e Stoudemire in a complicated deal for Rondo but the rebuilding Celtics has yet to show much interest.

Unless the Celtics are blown away with an offer it’s hard to imagine Celtics GM Danny Ainge trading his best player, Rondo, to the rival Knicks. When Isiah Thomas was in charge of the Knicks he tried for months to acquire Kevin Garnett from Minnesota only to have then Timberwolves GM Kevin McHale trade Garnett to Ainge, McHale’s former Celtics teammate.

A similar scenario could unfold in the coming weeks and months with the Rockets amenable to trading unhappy back-up center Omer Asik. Houston could enhance its championship credentials by adding Rondo to a lineup that includes Dwight Howard, James Harden and Chandler Parsons. In return, the Celtics may have interest in both the 7-foot Asik and Jeremy Lin, the point guard and Harvard graduate. McHale is now Houston’s head coach and Rockets GM Daryl Morey started his career in the Celtics front office.

Shumpert impressed the hell out of me with his defense in last year’s playoff series, but I’m not overly excited about trading for a guy who needed secret knee surgery.

This proposed deal with New York gives me shivers. Why?

Rajon Rondo is the best player in this report and it’s not even close

Acquiring Shumpert means Avery Bradley would have to go

I don’t trust Raymond Felton to stay off the Twinkies

Amar’e Stoudemire is due $23 million next season

I despise the Knicks

Any deal involving Amar’e would require the Knicks take back Gerald Wallace and other less desirable contracts (Brandon Bass?). Kris Humphries is the obvious choice, but he has too much value as an expiring contract.

The speculation about Houston holds my interest because it involves Asik – a young 7-footer who is an elite defender and rebounder. I hated the whole “Linsanity” hype but the kid is averaging 18 ppg on 52% shooting this season.

The Knicks deal has to be a non-starter. Houston? I would say…NO. But I like Asik and Lin as players. I hate everyone in the Knicks report. I say, keep Rondo.

jason benn

Wowwwww ainge should get fired if he goes with either of these. We will be a bigger joke for longer if one of these happen. i like asik but rondo should not be traded to acquire him. lets just trade rondo to the heat for ray allen and greg oden not both of these r horrible ideas ill literally projectile vomit everywhere if either of these happen. Banner 18 is on rondo to get you can’t tell me jeremy lin will bring us there or raymond felton and shump w stoddy f that in the a.

http://iamdustdaughter.wordpress.com/ Didi Jenning

For all the talk of McHale in HOU, we have to be mindful that he’s not in the front office there. However, Larry Bird (another former teammate of Ainge’s) is back in the front office for the Pacers.

jason benn

Yeah but who the pacers got that we would want that they would let go? Hibbert and george will stay west just got a new deal after that i don’t see a fair trade we can get from them unless one of the first two is offered

Curt Hays

No one is going to walk away from a trade with Larry Bird and be happy after the first 5 minutes. The man is a winner. There is no win-win with him. There is only win.

CFH

Dear All Other Teams,

NO!!!

xoxo,

Not Trading Rondo for Pennies on the Dollar

Mike C

There it is! CFH nailed it. What…? Are the Celtics just a carcass for the rest of the league to pick over? And some point we have to stop trading players and start winning games.

LA Flake

I’m not against trading Rondo but if we ever traded him to the Knicks, I’d be sobbing for a week when Rondo faces his old teammates in Brooklyn. Thankfully, that’ll never happen BUT IF IT DID, that would be all kinds of weird and possibly traumatic.

Jacquard Causeway

The problem is that neither the Knicks nor the Rockets have a prize big enough to make trading Rondo worth it (assuming Melo, Harden, and Howard are off the table).

Shumpert is nice, but his knees may keep him from lasting for a lot longer in this league.

The Knicks would have to take back a ton of bad contracts and give up at least three first round picks. I wouldn’t put it past them, but even then . . . I feel that Danny Ainge has to get some pretty significant immediate value to justify a Rondo trade.

zippittyay

I think the Houston trade makes a lot of sense. We would have a quality center and point guard. It would be interesting to see what the other piece are that would make it work. I like Donatas Motiejunas. That would shore up our two biggest weaknesses. We would still have a lot of draft picks and pieces to use to improve in the future. Houston is desperate to win right now, we are all about the next few years. That being said, I don’t want anything NY has.

jason benn

I think you know nothing of basketball if you think houstons offer makes sense. We don’t need a quality pg except to back up our championship winning triple double getting all star point guard we already have

zippittyay

If you think I know nothing of basketball, you obviously haven’t been around here long. I’ll just save your comment for future reference. They laughed at this one too.

That one at least makes sense when this team has no true center except for him and he is a hybrid center shooting threes n such that comment wouldn’t be that hard to believeoor not make sense. if you think tradingrondo to get asik and lin is gonna happenor is an upgrade at the pg position you sorely mistaken. you don’t trade the best plauer of your team for a solid big and at best a rotation never will be an all star ever pg your out of your damn mind.

frickenWaaaltah

Lol the Knicks…never change, NYK. You pretty much never want to trade a good point guard or center for a 2/3/4. Shumpert’s not bad, but come on, he’s just a decent rotation player, and the part about them hiding his knee surgery is pathetic.

The Asik/Lin deal would not be an insulting offer, but doing it would still be a franchise disaster.

Chuck Moran

I think this would be good three team deal. Houston gets Amir Johnson and Steve Novak the celtics get Asik and terrence ross and Toronto gets bass and lee.

frickenWaaaltah

It’s practical for Houston, but they’d probably want to do better.

And I don’t see why Toronto would do it. Swapping Johnson for Bass gets them a little more shooting and probably a little less other stuff. Johnson is probably the better fit for their roster right now. They’re comparably priced with basically the same contract with this year and next year on it (except Toronto has an option next year on Johnson for ~7mil, but they or whoever will probably take it). Are they scared he’ll walk away in summer 2015?

Novak does make more sense for a team like Houston than Toronto, but the Raptors probably aren’t in any hurry to ditch him. He’s under contract until summer 2016 at under ~4 mil so it’s kind of long but also fairly reasonable. Converting him and Ross into Lee is an all-around upgrade, but probably not enough to get them interested. Since they’re not trying to contend this year or next year they’d probably rather develop Ross.

And hey, if Houston actually would do this, wouldn’t Toronto want to just send them Amir Johnson and Novak for Asik? They have Valanciunas but he’s 21 so it could work for a while and even be good for his development. They could take their time and try to get a higher price for Asik or maybe re-sign him. Toronto does have a significant Turkish community.

Chuck Moran

I was thinking they wouldn’t want Asik cause of valanciunas but your rite if they did they prob would just take him instead.

jason benn

Good for lin averaging that but what did rondo average last year??? rondo went out in february and still finished leading the league in assists. it makes zero sense to trade him with one more year after this one on his contract before we need to give him a max contract that he has earned, and when teams are lowballing us. id trade rondo for say a kyrie irving or steph curry you know other ELITEpoint guards not a scrub pg. if someone gives us that then maybe it will tickle ainge the right way to pull the trigger, until then we will keep getting horrible offers. next up the pistons offer billups kwame brown and a 2nd rd pick

Exactly if we can’t get one of them for rondo then there is no trade out there that we should entertain. add rondo in that list and then you have two pgs with a ring rondo and parker

bill_nair

The shumpert trade doesn’t even make sense for NY so i don’t buy it. Plus we have the shorter version of shumpert in bradley. If fans are complaining about Wallaces contract take on Lin’s and asik’s and see how things work out. I like asik but hes the best player were going to get and I believe hes attainable without giving rondo away for nothing.

Danny will not trade Rondo for pennys on the dollar. He traded his 2 aging vets for 3 first round picks and future cap space. He at least wants a lotto pick for rondo.

adam

can we give them gerald wallace, kris humpries and the other dude we got form new jersey isntead?

Curt Hays

First of all, Lin is the real deal. Look at his deep stats. He makes good things happen. Asik is awesome. Both are needed in Boston. However, we have Rondo. There’s no need to screw things up by trading him. This is what Danny Ainge is going to do if he wants to be awesome:
1. Trade Humphries for Asik. Humphries is good/hard working, and I like him. However, the trade saves us 4 million this year and gets us a premier big guy to start along side Sullinger. Bring Vitor/Bass/Kelly in whenever you want and we’re in business. Also, we have protection from injury (stimulating concept, I know).
2. We still have the trade exception from P2, but we need to stay under the cap also. So, dump Bass (I know he’s doing well) or Lee (I love the guy, but he’s overpaid) or Bogans (vastly overpaid and doing nothing).
3. Then we use that extra ~$6M of space, along with the ~$4M we saved on the Asik trade, to trade a third player away for someone getting paid up to as much as the trade exception from Pierce. This means we can trade

Curt Hays

Please remove this post. I didn’t mean to post it here…and it isn’t even complete.

jason benn

If lin is the real deal why would mchale bench to start beverly over lin lin only starting cuz beverly is injured

Curt Hays

Starting isn’t that big of a deal to anyone but Glen Rivers. However, Beverly is a beast too. But, I could ask why Jared Sullinger isn’t starting or why Gerald Wallace isn’t starting. Ray Allen doesn’t even start, and he’s the third best player on the team.

jason benn

rivers always said especially when he benched ray it doesnt matter who starts to him it matters more who finishes the game so i dont get that part???? sullinger would and will be starting when he has fully recovered he said himself he needs to get in game shape better, wallace doesnt start because nobody cares about his minutes he isnt here for the long haul they trying everything they can to trade him besides starting him at the risk of taking minutes away from jeff green who im sure they are hoping will turn into a valuable trade chip ….again ray allen doesnt start because he plays the 2 guard spot which they have d wade at so he eats up those minutes and im sure ray has some ankle injury still they are hoping stays at a low inflammation level so he can crush another teams hopes at a ring like the spurs last year so he doesnt start becuase he is 38 and they want him fresh in the legs. i hate the heat but i know that ray allen is definetly not the 3rd best player on that team obviously its lebron and dwade but then they are many more options like battier who actually plays defense that are better then ray.

Curt Hays

And now we trust everything that Glen says on TV? Ha.
There’s no need to waste all the effort typing about Sullinger and Wallace. It was a rhetorical question. Apparently you value starting spots more than I do. Brad Stevens sure doesn’t care about them.
My point is that Lin starting or Beverly starting matters none. Lin has a PER of 19.3 which second only to James Harden and Beverly is at 11.8. Lin has the highest effective FG% on the whole team by leaps and bounds. Lin has a better FG% than Beverly, far more assists, and scores way more points per 36 minutes. Beverly gets more rebounds. I don’t think there is any arguement to make.